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What she would have said was that she admired, loved Father Damon on account of his love for humanity. It was a common saying of all the professional women in her set, and of the working-girls, that they loved Father Damon. It is a comfort to women to be able to give their affection freely where conventionalities and circumstances make the return of it in degree unlikely.
It was her idea of repose from the winter's gayety, and in it she sustained the role of the non-fatigueable society girl. It is a performance that many working-girls regard with amazement. There was quite a flutter in the cottage, as there always is when those who know each other well meet under new circumstances after a short separation.
Neither was the thought that she was to spend her summer making working-girls happy on a farm on Long Island. She had grown sceptical as to working-girls, and of the good she did them or any one else.
I also learned, later on, that had there not been also an iron-clad rule against carrying lead-pencils into the dormitory, the snowy-white walls were like as not to be scrawled with obscenities during the night hours. All sorts of girls seeking a night's refuge drifted into this working-girls' home.
For instance, in Michigan, the State Grange for several years carried on a "Fresh-Air Work," by which over 1,000 working-girls, children, and hard-working mothers with babies, from the larger cities, were given a two-weeks' vacation in country homes. The philanthropic agencies of the cities arranged for transportation and secured the beneficiaries, while the Grange obtained the places for them.
Understanding him to mean that, being a mill-hand herself, she could not get a detached view of the matter, and thus see the humour of this attempt to make society women of working-girls, Johnnie was yet not affronted. Her clear eyes came back from watching Uncle Zeke's manoeuvres and looked frankly into the eyes of the man beside her. "I reckon we are right funny," she assented.
It was probably this feature of his activity, and not his spiritual mission, that attracted to him the little group of positivists on the East Side, the demagogues of the labor lodges, the practical workers of the working-girls' clubs, and the humanitarian agnostics like Dr. Leigh, who were literally giving their lives without the least expectation of reward.
It was said that twenty working-girls were engaged day and night upon the trousseau. The wedding-dress alone required three persons to make it, and there was to be a corbeille, or present from the bridegroom, to the value of a million of francs: a fluttering of laces, of velvets, of silks and satins, a flood of precious stones diamonds worthy a Queen.
It might be young Wainwright, with the proof-sheets of the new story he had promised to let her see, or flowers for the dance from Bruce-Brice, of the English Legation at Washington, who for the time being was practising diplomatic moves in New York, or some of her working-girls with a new perplexity for her to unravel, or only one of the men from the stable to tell her how her hunter was getting on after his fall.
"And what were you doing at her house, may I ask?" her aunt queried further. The geniality of this interrogation hardly concealed its crudity; Jane felt herself accused of an incongruous and inexplicable intrusion into a region of unaccustomed splendor and distinction. "Oh, she was collecting money for her working-girls' lunchroom," volunteered Rosy, with a cruel bluntness.
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